Image: Nordic Watercolour Museum, Skärhamn
Nordiska Akvarellmuseet in Skärhamn is presenting an extensive summer exhibition devoted to two of Denmark’s most significant postwar artists, Asger Jorn and Per Kirkeby. The show brings together watercolours and drawings by both artists and runs from 10 May to 6 September 2026, according to the museum’s exhibition page. The museum says the presentation highlights how the two artists, working in different but related ways, combined intellectual sharpness with emotional intensity in their image-making during a period of major change.
The exhibition takes a close look at Jorn and Kirkeby through works on paper, a format that lets the museum foreground what it describes as experimental aspects of their practice. In its August newsletter, the institution says the show is the summer’s main exhibition and notes that just over a month remained before it closed on 6 September 2026. The newsletter also describes the exhibition as an opportunity to see how the artists’ approaches converge around an interest in painting’s “inner magic,” despite their belonging to different generations.
Asger Jorn, born in 1914 and active until 1973, is presented by the museum as one of the most influential figures in the European avant-garde. The exhibition page identifies him as a co-founder of CoBrA, the postwar movement associated with spontaneous and free creation. The museum characterises his art as energetic, humorous and philosophical, and situates his work as a continuing source of inspiration for later artists.
Per Kirkeby, born in 1938 and active until 2018, is framed differently. The museum says his artistic vision was shaped by nature and the structures of time, informed by his training as a geologist. It presents him as a major renewer of neo-expressionist painting in the 1980s, while also noting that his practice extended across painting, sculpture, printmaking and poetry. The exhibition uses the watercolour-and-drawing format to bring attention to another side of that wider body of work.
The museum’s newsletter places the Jorn-Kirkeby exhibition alongside other summer activity, including a selection from the museum collection shown in a rear gallery through 6 September and a separate display of works by Lars Lerin in the museum’s Collection Hall. These parallel presentations are distinct from the main exhibition, but together they show how the museum is using its summer season to draw on both its own collection and temporary exhibitions.
In the exhibition materials, the museum also points visitors to an audioguide, a summer 2026 programme booklet in Swedish and English, and a review in Göteborgs-Posten dated 17 May 2026. The exhibition page includes images of works by Jorn and Kirkeby and notes a visitor activity in which people can be inspired by photographs of Kirkeby’s large brick sculptures and create smaller constructions themselves. The museum is open daily from 11:00 to 17:00 through 6 September 2026, with closure for exhibition changeover from 7 to 26 September.
